Early Georgian Portraits Catalogue: Herring

The following text is from the National Portrait Gallery collection catalogue: John Kerslake, Early Georgian Portraits, Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1977 (now out of print). For the most up to date research on the Collection, we recommend reading the information provided in the Search the Collection results on this website in parallel with this text. This can be accessed by following the link with each portrait’s title.

In consulting the following, please note that apart from the reformatting which allows the printed catalogue to be made available on-line the text is as published in 1977. Footnotes in the original edition are given within square brackets.

Thomas Herring (1693-1757)Archbishop of Canterbury; BA Jesus College, Cambridge, 1713; fellow of Corpus Christi and ordained, 1716, MA 1717, DD 1728; dean of Rochester, 1732; bishop of Bangor, 1737-43; as archbishop of York, 1743-47, raised a large sum of money for the government during the Jacobite rebellion, earning him the soubriquet ‘red Herring'; archbishop of Canterbury, 1747-57; repaired Lambeth and Croydon Palaces, and left benefactions to the sons of the clergy and Corpus Christi College.

Inscribed in yellow on right DR. THOMAS HERRING/ LORD ARCHBISHOP OF YORK. Stencils on the top stretcher bar: 994, 191MH, 45JR, 984z(?);also 221 in white chalk, the lot number from Bonham's sale.

NPG 4895 is very near the design engraved by Faber after Hudson 1751, but in the latter there is a letter in his hand, his gown is differently arranged and the chair is different; the handling is, however, close enough to warrant an attribution. As Ingamells points out, sittings are mentioned in a letter from Herring to Duncombe, 18 May 1748, 'Pray see my picture at Hudson's. If you like it, I will order a copy, and sit once or twice, but, I protest, I am tired of that work'. [1] This is after the translation to Canterbury, in which case the inscription may be retrospective. Other versions were at Bishopthorpe until 1971, subsequently with the Church Commissioners and viewed by Ingamells as the possible source of Faber's engraving; with Colonel P.W. Herring, and at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. All are approximately 50 x 40 in..

IconographyThe portraits of Herring are discussed by Ingamells in the references given above, particularly in his well-illustrated article in the Connoisseur. There are five types. Herring had promised to sit, and may already have sat, to 'Willes', presumably James Willes (d.1777) for his friend Duncombe, by 16 December 1741. [2] The original, at Lambeth Palace, NPE 1867 (269) has been mistaken for a Hogarth; a version is at Bishopthorpe. [3] A signed and dated head by Mercier, 1743, was last heard of in the collection of H. Worsdell of Finchley c.1930. [4] Hogarth's portrait, which the sitter told Duncombe 'none of his friends could bear', was begun in 1744 and was engraved by B. Baron; it was acquired by the Tate Gallery in 1976. [5] For the Hudson type, 1748, see NPG 4895 above. The last type is by Samuel Webster and was engraved by McArdell. The canvas at Lambeth is signed, and according to Scharf, dated 1757 [6] It too has been wrongly attributed to Hogarth. There is no sculpture and the sitter him­self specifically forbad a monument. [7]